TEAM Girl Malawi

Transformational Empowerment of Adolescent Marginalised Girls in Malawi External Evaluation

Link Education International has implemented the Transformational Empowerment of Adolescent Marginalised Girls in Malawi (TEAM Girl Malawi) project; an FCDO funded, ‘Girls’ Education Challenge’ initiative through the ‘Leave No Girl Behind’ funding window. TEAM Girl Malawi operated in communities in two rural districts and one urban district in Malawi’s Central Region. The project endeavored to improve learning and life chances for some of the most vulnerable girls in the country, aged 10–19, who have never been to school or who dropped out of school without gaining functional literacy and numeracy.

As the external evaluator, STS conducted a mixed-method, longitudinal, gender-sensitive evaluation inclusive of persons with disabilities of the ‘TEAM Girl Malawi’ project over the five years from baseline to endline. The evaluation assessed the delivery, effectiveness, value for money, and impact of the project, and reported the findings and lessons learned throughout the process. STS’s primary responsibilities were to develop fieldwork plans and research tools, pilot and adapt those tools, collect and analyze data on outcomes and intermediate outcomes, and present these findings in a report to the Fund Manager with associated data.

Over the course of the three evaluation timepoints, STS conducted over 1,000 girls’ surveys, 975 household surveys, 20 focus group discussions, and 48 key informant interviews. Tools were tailored to the specific respondent groups: adolescent boys and girls who were out of school, complementary basic education (CBE) facilitators, community members, mothers’ groups, government officials and project staff. At each evaluation timepoint, STS partnered with a local data collection firm in Malawi, the Centre for Educational Research and Training (CERT).

Dates: 2019 – 2023